The American Indian College Fund
Names 2007-08 Mellon Fellows

DENVER, Colorado (August 14, 2007) – The American Indian College Fund (the Fund) has selected four recipients for its prestigious Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Faculty Career Enhancement Fellowship Program for 2007-08. Sharon Fredericks, Terry Gomez, Mathew Martinez, and Joni Murphy will each receive a $30,000 fellowship geared to assist tribal college faculty members who are in the final stages of completing a terminal degree.

Through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Fund launched the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Faculty Career Enhancement Fellowship Program in 2004. The program was created to increase the number of faculty at the nation's more than 30 tribal colleges and universities possessing a terminal degree, and is designed to provide each Fellow with financial assistance to complete the dissertation writing process free of financial and professional demands.

This year's fellowship recipients include:

Sharon Fredericks (Menominee), a Ph.D. student in the Department of Education at Capella University.  Since 2001, Sharon has taught at the College of Menominee Nation, department of Early Childhood Education.  

Frederick 's dissertation suggests a discrepancy between the number of minority students and minority faculty in higher education. She notes that even institutions that cater to certain ethnic groups are struggling to find faculty representative of their student body. Her research will describe the experiences of non-Native tribal college faculty members as they work to understand and embrace American Indian culture, and her research will provide methods to develop effective tools to support non-Native faculty at TCUs. 

Terry Gomez (Comanche Nation), a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) student in the Department of Dramatic Writing at the University of New Mexico (UNM).  Since 2004, Gomez has been a faculty member at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, teaching courses in dramatic writing, acting and play production.  She is also an IAIA alumna.

Gomez's thesis is a collection of three plays focusing on the history of how Native American women are negatively depicted in theater and film, and how this contributes to an invisibility of Native woman in society, low self-esteem, and a re-identification of self, especially in the case of younger people. She will develop the plays into full productions. 

Matthew Martinez (Ohkay Owingeh/San Juan Pueblo) is a Ph.D. student in the American Studies Department at the University of Minnesota.  He also serves as a faculty member in the Indigenous Liberal Arts department at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. 

Martinez 's dissertation examines the fields of photography, tourism, and Pueblo historiography. His research details how tourism helps construct indigenous identities and representations.  He explores how tourism has changed since the 1980s as the northern Pueblo tribes exerted greater participation and control in the industry, producing and circulating photographic images that better represent themselves and their communities. 

Joni Murphy (Muscogee) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Art History at the University of Kansas.  She has served as a faculty member in the English Department at Haskell Indian Nations University (HINU) for five years, and is a HINU alumna.

Murphy's dissertation will explore Native American culture, history, philosophy, and identity as reflected in the work of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith.  Quick-to-See Smith is a Salish painter/printmaker who exhibits her work, curates Native exhibitions, and lectures internationally, and burst onto the international art scene in the late 1970s.  Murphy research demonstrates how Quick-to-See-Smith's art has developed the modern Native American art context by using symbolic motifs in their art that give spiritual depth to contemporary paintings and drawings.  Murphy's study will be the first comprehensive monographic study of Quick-to-See Smith. 

The Denver-based American Indian College Fund is the nation's largest provider of private scholarships for American Indian students, providing 5,000 scholarships annually for students seeking to better their lives and communities through education. For more information about the American Indian College Fund or to make a donation, visit www.collegefund.org.

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